Writing in between the lines

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Last year, around the time that school was about to start, a group of students and English teacher Rachel Smith started to meet every wednesday. The intent of the meetings was to gather, write, and share. The group calls themselves the writing club, and they have continued to meet throughout this school year as well. Smith said the club came together easily.

“I feel like the real reason was some students had talked about having a writing club we set up a group me and planned it,” Smith said, “We started meeting at foos cafe, and we’re still meeting at Foo’s cafe, Wednesday’s at four pm.”

Smith said that the students in the club are ones who already had an interest in writing before, and had sought a place to share their passion.

“Well most of the people who are in the club are in the club because they already write. So probably 80 percent of the time people bring something that they wrote outside of club that they want to share, but we also give prompts to try and jumpstart the creative process.”

Prompts have been simple things like “Write something funny” or more complex things like getting paint swatches from home depot and having to incorporate the name into the piece for that week. During the meetings, the group does a few activities.

“We all share poetry, and only positive feedback, we encourage each other to write more, and even write during the club,” Smith said. “We usually take about 20 min and do some flash writing.”

Positivity and encouragement is something the student participants appreciate, students like Senior Gabe Reid.

“I like that you can share your work and not of un the fear of being judged too hard,” Reid said. He also enjoys the opportunity to learn from those around him.

“Also being surrounded by other creative people is really fun,” Reid said.

“I like that I can share my writing freely without getting criticized for it,” Vicker said.

Aside from a fun place to not have judgement, Smith feels that writing club is also a necessary tool for young writers.

“I think the club has gone through different seasons,” Smith said. “Sometimes it feels more important and more of a priority and that’s when people are using it as an outlet or a community…and other times it’s more a fun if you have time. Sometimes I feel like people get a lot out of it because they need it.